"B" as in Betty...

Welcome to Alphabe Thursday sponsored by Ms. Jenny over at Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."  For a list of this week's participants and information on how you can join in the fun head over to Ms. Jenny's blog.

This week we are studying the letter "B" as in BETTY.

BETTY is an old fashion name.  It's also my name.  According to one site it's of Dutch, English and Hebrew origin and means God's Promise. 

My name is BETTY...not Elizabeth.  All through school I had to argue with teachers who insisted my name had to be Elizabeth.  It wasn't.  My parents had a deal...Mom would name any girls and Dad would name any boys.  My mother decided to name me BETTY Jean and she insisted everyone call me BETTY Jean.  Sounds like I was born in the deep south, but I was actually born in Hackensack, NJ.

For the first ten years of my life I was called BETTY Jean.  Since then I've spent the last 55 years correcting anyone who calls me BETTY Jean.  It's just plain BETTY.  Come on...BETTY is bad enough without adding the Jean.  I've never liked my name.

According to the Social Security website between 1910 and 1996 the name BETTY was the second most popular girl's name from 1928 until 1934.  We never made it to number one and our numbers have been falling ever since.  I was born in 1945 and BETTY was number 11 that year.  The most recent year they show on their website is 1996 and BETTY had dropped to 919.  I was surprised it was even that high.  If you'd like to see how popular your name is check out the Social Security website.  You can search by a particular year or you can search over a period of years to see how the popularity of your name has changed over the years.  It's kind of fun, so give it a try.


Here are some BETTYs...

BETTY BOOP...animated cartoon character

BETTY Rubble...from the Flinstones

BETTY Cooper...from BETTY and Veronica comic book fame

BETTY CROCKER...who helped me learn to bake and cook

BETTY Grable...the actress and WW II pin up girl

BETTY Ford...the widow of President Gerald Ford

BETTY White...one of my all time favorites

Who can forget Betty White's Super Bowl commercial...

My mother's nickname was BETTY.  She was actually named Carolyn Elizabeth Morris, but the nickname BETTY does not come from Elizabeth.  When she was small her grandmother called her something in German that sounded like BEPSIE and from that people started calling her BETTY.  I love this old picture of her with her doll.  This was probably taken in 1921 or 22.

I don't love this picture.   Actually, this is a hundred times better than my latest driver's license picture, so that tells you something right there.  Don't you just love the hairdo?  I know I put this up on my blog once before, but it's so awful it's worth repeating.  (Mom, why did you let me go out in public that day?)  Yes, that's BETTY Jean in 1954.

Some of you might remember when I recently had a little extra time on my hands and googled my name.  I wrote about it in this post.

Now head on over to Ms. Jenny's blog for this week's addition of Alphabe Thursday.  Don't worry about me if I'm not around on Friday.  I have a prior engagement and I'll be very busy.

Now I'm off to polish my tiara, bake crumpets, and find a good alarm clock.  Cheerio...

PS...Last week I had trouble and couldn't post pictures with blogger for Alphabe Thursday.  I discovered that if I sign out and then sign back in again the problem clears up.  Wish I had thought of that last week.  I'm passing this information along in case anyone else is having trouble too.